12.24.2013

Christianity and Christian discipleship is fundamentally about The Good News - God has given us Jesus Christ, who has come to save us from our sins. What was once broken is now restored, ever more fully, in the life of Christ. This is the evangel, the Good News of Salvation. Merry Christmas!

When our culture, postmodern Western Culture, hears the Good News, it immediately asks a pointed followup question: "How is this good news?" After all, this Good News reads as an accusation. Modern folks might be interested in salvation, but it's certainly not salvation from something so antiquated or unreal as SIN. And woe to the person (the Christian) who claims something someone freely chooses to do is sinful. This is the most intolerable insult, the one absolute truth to which our culture clings. This insult, the claim that some choices are sinful, assaults both American idols: FREEDOM and CHOICE. Free choices are anointed or holy. And choices - everyone deserves to choose as they see fit, and no one has the right to say otherwise. Now if Christianity claimed to save us from boredom, or from poverty, or from war, or from Republicans, its Good News claim might have a more interesting effect. But this is obviously not the case.

Modern Christian Evangelization must take this modern rebuke of the traditional method of proclaiming the Christian Gospel into account. As VATICAN II says, Christians must "read the signs of the times" and act accordingly. The world will not be persuaded by a God whose principle claim on our attention is salvation from some unknown malady.

12.14.2013

Joe Girardi, coach of the Yankees, had this to say about Jacoby Ellsbury joining his team:

"There are so many different ways he can beat you, whether it's with
his power or with his speed or with his glove," Girardi said. "Jacoby,
you are going to make my job so much easier. You are no longer a thorn
in my side; you are a flower in our clubhouse."

"You are a flower in our clubhouse"? Is that supposed to be a compliment? And what kind of flower is worth $153 million dollars? ABSURD :)

Pretentious Precepts

"First Things means, first, that the first thing to be said about public life is that public life is not the first thing. First Things means, second, that there are first things, in the sense of first principles, for the right ordering of public life."

“A free society cannot survive if we are so free that nothing is expected of us.”